Brian Dobie is not shying away from the realities for his football team as it prepares for another Canada West season.

Four days away from the opening of training camp for the University of Manitoba Bisons, the head coach was frank in assessing the lot the Bisons hold two weeks before the conference season kicks off.

“There’s gonna be definite road bumps as we go, there’s no question,” said Dobie, who will enter his 16th season at the helm of the Herd. “You look where we were last year, 2-6, there’s a lot of reasons for that and one very obvious reason was our age, our lack of it. Really we’re not that far ahead in terms of that department this year, but you take in a breath and go: We believe in the kids that we’ve recruited but the operative word there is kids. We’re going with them.”

Dobie estimates 61 of the 88 players who will be in camp when it opens on Saturday will be first- or second-year players. And those second-year players? Take into account that many of them are red-shirt freshmen, who didn’t play a snap a season ago.

Dobie, however, also believes that sets them up well to be a conference power when the team moves into a new stadium in 2012.

“We’re crazy, crazy young,” he said. “BUT — great big thick, black letters on this quote — we are building this program with that stadium. We wanna walk in there next year and be a competitive team and in the first few years of that stadium, we wanna get it done. We wanna be an extremely high level team and the way to do that is to build.”

Once camp opens this weekend, the Bisons will barely have time to figure out jersey numbers before they hit the road for a non-conference tilt with the Regina Rams, Aug. 27. The conference season opens Sept. 3 at home against the Calgary Dinos.

“It’s pretty tough, but it’s the same for everybody,” Dobie said. “Those are the rules and you go like a tornado. You just do. … There’s just no other way around it but to go through it and I think this year for us it’s compounded because — I’m sure this is the youngest team in the history of this program.”

Dobie is excited about the running back position where three freshmen — Anthony Coombs, Winnipeg Rifles product Kienan LaFrance and Nic Demski, who won a provincial high school title with Oak Park last year — will battle for carries.

“All three are different and all three are high-end dynamic guys and all three have five years of eligibility left. We will build with them, we will grow with them and I think that’s one of our strengths.”